Sarah Gilman - Ghosts of the Falls

She paused, chuckled, and held a finger up to her mouth. “Sure. I saw nothing.”

He fought the urge to reach out, push her delicate hand away from her lips, and find out if she tasted as sweet as the sound of her laughter. If he indulged that much, he’d be tempted to suddenly forget how to find the gravesite, forget that he brought her here to end him.

He turned away. He had to stay focused.

They moved on.

“You like roses?” he asked.

“I like the woods. I’ve never seen rose bushes like that growing wild. They’re far more beautiful and alluring out here than in a pampered garden. Someone must have planted them, though. Who takes care of them?”

“I’m not sure. Not my thing.” In truth, the roses and all the other flowers had always been there. He’d first seen them when he’d been alive, working for the logging company, clearing the area. After the clear-cutting, the trees and the flowers had grown back more quickly than he would have thought possible. But he’d been a ghost at that point, leaving him much less of a skeptic than he’d been in life.

She kept touching trees as she passed them, holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand. “Maybe they grow on their own. Spirits as powerful as the one haunting this forest are usually associated with an abundance of the naturally occurring energies that help life thrive.”

“Energies?”

“Life feeds off more than water and sunlight and nutrients.” She lifted her chin, her lips thinned, and her voice took on a defensive tone. “Science will advance enough to identify a dozen different energies that support life, probably soon.”

“I believe you.”

She missed a beat and stammered. “You do?”

“Looking at this place, it’s hard not to. And I already believe in ghosts.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Could the energy in question trap the spirit in this world?”

“Trap him, no. Make him strong enough to appear, have conversations with fishermen, and burn down motels? Yes.”

“I see. But how do life-strengthening energies affect him? He’s dead.”

“Souls are living things,” she said, her voice quiet, somber. “They don’t belong in this world any longer, but they are still us .”

Interesting. He was still a living thing, on some level? In his physical form, it felt that way, but he considered those feelings and sensations illusions. He was dead. His bones lay in the earth less than a half-mile away, shattered from his fall into the gorge.

Having company chased away the emptiness that usually filled his chest. He took a side trail to show her the old-growth hemlocks, a cluster of massive, five-hundred-year-old trees.

“The logging company left them so the workers had a shady place during the day.”

“They’re beautiful,” she said, standing next to a trunk wider than her arm-span, staring upward.

“Yes, they are.” He stared at her, the real beauty of the spot. If only he could have a woman like this in his afterlife, he wouldn’t be in such a hurry to end it.

“How does an exorcism work? Anything like the movies?” Just last spring, the park’s outdoor theater had shown The Exorcist , giving Dutch the idea. Unlike the demon, Dutch wouldn’t fight, so the process wouldn’t be that violent, he hoped.

“Nothing like in the movies. My family is nondenominational, and clairvoyance is strong in our bloodline. We can sense spirits in our vicinity, and when we read from the text my great-grandfather wrote, we can destroy them.” Her throat worked and the humor in her expression vanished. “No theatrics involved. First I’ll bind him so he can’t escape, then I’ll read, which will erode his power until there’s nothing left. Unfortunately, it’s extremely painful for the spirit, and the stronger they are, the longer it takes.”

Dutch clenched his teeth, steeling his resolve. “May I ask why an exorcism is so severe? Is there no way to simply send a spirit on to heaven or hell or wherever it is they’re supposed to go after death?”

“Well…” She blew out a heavy sigh. “My great-grandfather, the first known clairvoyant in my family, wrote all the incantations we use, giving us a variety of tricks. Binding, exorcism, stripping a spirit of its will and commanding it like a puppet, etcetera. There are even passages that allow us to inflict pain on the spirit for as long as we want, with no purpose except to draw out the torture.”

She rubbed her face and continued. “A spirit killed my great-grandmother. My great-grandfather began writing exorcisms the next day. He never bothered to develop an incantation that would help a ghost move on. In his journal, he stated they didn’t deserve such mercy, that earth-bound spirits were inherently evil. Considering the number of malicious spirits that roam the earth, every generation has subscribed to his teachings without much question. It does seem that the majority spirits go insane and turn violent if stuck in this world.”

“I see.” Dutch shivered. The grief-stricken exorcist had been a bigot to judge all spirits in such a condemning way, but he hadn’t been far off the mark. The few other spirits Dutch had run into had been reservoirs of malice, intent on playing deadly games with the living. Thankfully, they’d all had such a low power level that the humans had noticed only cold drafts and strange noises, at most.

“I hate it,” she bit out. “It’s torture and forever destroys a human soul, yet we perform them at the drop of a hat.” She lifted a hand to her forehead. “Sorry. I’m… I can’t believe how much I don’t want to do this!”

He blinked, touched her arm, and pulled her to a stop. “What are you talking about?”

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “I believe we perform too many exorcisms without being certain the spirit deserves such an end. For years, I’ve been researching, trying to write an incantation that would send spirits on to the next world without hurting them, to heaven or hell or wherever they’re supposed to go, like you say. I’ve failed so far. Recently, a spirit I thought was innocent tricked me, and my beliefs got an innocent woman killed.” She nodded and straightened her spine. “So… Let’s get going.”

He stared after her as she strode off ahead. Someone had been killed? “ What? ”

She stopped but didn’t turn. Her shoulders slumped.

“How’d she die?”

“The ghost I refused to exorcise,” she said, spitting the words.

Dutch rejoined her and reached out to touch her arm, but she took a step back.

“I need to finish this job,” she said, her voice firm but bitter. “If I don’t do my job again , people will get hurt or killed.”

“You were trying to find a better way to do that job,” he said slowly, choosing his words with care.

“It didn’t work.” She resumed walking. “I wish it had, but it didn’t.”

“It was worth the attempt. You didn’t kill that woman. You gave a spirit a second chance and he chose what to do with it.”

“I enabled him. By not exorcising him, I gave him the opportunity.”

“Bull. Every person you meet on the street could hurt someone someday. It’s not your fault if you think better of them.”

She stared at him, her arms folded. “Thanks.” She paused. “I’m sorry to act so unprofessional. I’ve had a rough couple of days.”

“I’m the one who is sorry. The last thing I want to do is add to your troubles.” He swallowed the desire to assure her that he’d never hurt anyone, that she could walk away guilt-free. But he needed this. He couldn’t continue enduring decade after lonely decade. She was his salvation. “Why do you do this if it bothers you so much?”